Main Content

The World of Protozoa, Rotifera, Nematoda and Oligochaeta

Ref ID : 923

The Committee on Systematics and Evolution of the Society of Protozoologists, Nelson D. Levine, John O. Corliss, F.E.G. Cox, G. Deroux, J. Grain, B.M. Honigberg, G.F. Leedale, A.R. Loeblich,III, J. Lom, D. Lynn, E.G. Merinfeld, Frederick C. Page, G. Poljansky, V. Sprague, J. Vavra, and F.G. Wallace; A newly revised classification of the protozoa. J.Protozool. 27(1):37-58, 1980

Reprint

: In File

Notes

: The subkingdom Protozoa now includes over 65,000 named species, of which over half are fossil and ~10,000 are parasitic. Among living species, this includes ~250 parasitic and 11,300 free-living sarcodines (of which ~4,600 are foraminiferids); ~1,800 parasitic and 5,100 free-living flagellates; ~5,600 parasitic "Sporozoa" (including Apicomplexa, Microspora, Mycrospora, and Ascetospora); and ~2,500 parasitic and 4,700 free-living ciliates. These are undoubtedly thousands more still unnamed. Seven phyla of Protozoa are accepted in this classification- SARCOMASTIGOPHORA, LABYRINTHOMORPHA, APICOMPLEXA, MICROSPORA, ASCETOSPORA, MYXOSPORA, and CILIOPHORA. Diagnoses are given for these and for all higher taxa through suborders, and representative genera of each are named. The present scheme is a considerable revision of the Society's 1964 classification, which was prepared at a time when perhaps 48,000 species had been named. It has been necessitated by the acquisition of a great deal of new taxonomic information, much of it through electron microscopy. It is hoped that the present classification incorporates most of the major changes that will be made for some time, and that it will be used for many years by both protozoologists and nonprotozoologists.